


Meant to Be

by Miaou Jones (miaoujones)



Category: South Park
Genre: Emotional Confusion, Figuring Things Out, Friendship, Gen, High School, Love, M/M, Pool Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-15
Updated: 2011-09-15
Packaged: 2017-10-23 18:29:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/253528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miaoujones/pseuds/Miaou%20Jones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a brief and shining moment, Craig thought he had everything. Then it turned out he has nothing. Fuck everyone, anyhow, and himself most of all. (A love story, Craig Tucker style.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meant to Be

**Author's Note:**

> (Rewritten for another fandom. If you're looking for the Free! version, it's [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1040856).)

Clyde closes his eyes when he comes this time, like he does when it's good. His head lolls to the side, lips parted, hands riding Craig's hips as Craig keeps fucking him like there's no tomorrow. Someday Craig will bend to kiss the razor-thin scars on Clyde's cheek when he comes, but he only looks at them this time, like he always does, loving them in a way he has never been able to tell Clyde, regretting only that he wasn't the one to make them, wondering if Clyde might, one day, let him remedy that.

Yeah, someday Craig will lick those scars when he comes, but for now he only looks, and closes his own eyes when he spills himself into Clyde.

When Clyde is ready, his hands falling from Craig, Craig shifts out of him and sits up. They're quiet, the way they usually are when it's been this good.

Then Clyde says, "You can go now."

The edges of Craig's mouth curve, sensing what must be a joke he doesn't get yet. "What?"

"You can go now," Clyde says again. "To Tweek."

Craig wants to laugh and tell Clyde that if he wanted to be with Tweek tonight—

But Clyde is talking again: "Thanks for telling me about you and him," he says, but he doesn't sound thankful. He doesn't sound anything, his voice flatlining as he goes on, "And thanks for the goodbye pity fuck."

The words ring so loudly in Craig's head that he almost misses Clyde say, softer, emotion leaking into the fissures in his voice, "That was the best it's ever been."

In the time it takes Craig to try to decide between telling Clyde he's right, it was pretty great, but he bets they can do even better; and telling Clyde he's wrong, there was no pity and no goodbye in how they just fucked, and Craig doesn't understand why Clyde would think there was—as Craig is trying to figure out what to say, Clyde rolls onto his side, his back to Craig.

"Can you please just go?" Clyde's voice cracks a little higher on each word. "I want to stay friends with you, but I don't think I can be around you for a little while. I just—I just want you to go." When Craig doesn't move, Clyde says, "Please, man—if you ever—if you're my friend, just go, okay?"

Craig knows Clyde is crying now. It sometimes turns him on when Clyde cries, because he gets to be the one to make the tears stop. He doesn't feel turned on right now, but he still wants to be the one. He knows Clyde isn't crying to make him feel that way; that's just how it is.

When Craig reaches for Clyde, Clyde jerks away at his touch, then actually gets out of bed and stands at the window. He won't look at Craig, even when Craig says his name. "Please," Clyde says, "just go."

So Craig does.

He doesn't go to Tweek's, though. He walks around, trying to think. He thought when Clyde told him he should hook up with Tweek that Clyde was saying he was okay with Craig hooking up with both of them. He doesn't think that anymore.

Craig gives up on thinking, just walks around for a while, and finally goes home because there's nowhere else to go.

 

Craig kind of thought Clyde would ditch school the next day, but he shows up to homeroom at the last second, sliding into his seat just as the bell is ringing. They don't have any morning classes together so Craig waits impatiently for lunch. He's sitting with Token and Jason at their usual table, the seat to his right reserved for Clyde like always, but when Clyde gets through the line and pays for his sloppy joe and fries, he takes his tray to the other side of the cafeteria. Craig has to swivel in his seat to see where Clyde is going, which turns out to be Wendy and Bebe's table. He says something to Bebe, who nods, then he takes an unused chair from the next table over while the girls shuffle themselves to make space for him.

"Are they back together?" Token asks with what Craig might call mild disappointment, if he cared to try to identify it. Craig shrugs.

The rumor about Clyde and Bebe gets around so fast that by the time Craig sees Tweek in chemistry, Tweek has apparently already heard it, because he keeps looking over at Craig and he can't seem to stop smiling.

They don't talk, though, until they meet behind the gym after school, as planned. Craig has barely rounded the corner when Tweek shouts, "Did you talk to him? Did you tell him about me—ah, us?," so anxious he can't wait for Craig to get to him to start the conversation.

Craig waits to answer until they're standing together. "Yeah, I told him."

Tweek searches his face, his fingers twitching like they want to latch onto Craig's jacket but don't dare. "And he said it's okay? It's really okay? We can be together?" Tweek hadn't believed that Clyde was okay with Craig seeing both of them, let alone that it had been Clyde's idea, and had insisted that Craig make sure one more time before anything happened between them—which is why Craig had gone over to Clyde's last night, though not why he'd stayed.

"We can be together," Craig says, because that's the only thing there is to say about it.

Tweek slides his arms around Craig's waist, face turned up, presenting himself to be kissed and molested the way Craig told Tweek yesterday he wants to, and promised to show him then; and does show him now.

 

A couple of days later, Craig and Token are at the GameStop in Conifer when they see Bebe in the life sim section by herself.

"Hey," Craig says in the lull of small talk he hasn't been able to pay attention to between Token and Bebe, "are you and Clyde together now?"

"I don't think you get to ask questions about him," she says. They eye each other, neither flinching, and Craig wonders just how much she knows, how much Clyde has told her.

"So, uh." Token clears his throat. Bebe turns to look at him, but Craig keeps looking at her. "Are you and Clyde, like, together now?"

"No," she says, her eyes sliding to meet Craig's ever so briefly before going back to Token. "We're just friends." Although she's wrapped the ends of her hair around her finger, there's no coyness in her words, no euphemism-indicating quotation marks around _just friends_. Since she answered Token and not him, Craig can only guess that Clyde asked her not to talk about him to Craig, which makes him feel better and worse at the same time.

Craig leaves Token and Bebe to their flirting and takes the bus back to South Park. He's not in the mood to go through a round of coffee and conversation with the Tweaks, so he goes to Tweek's window instead of knocking on the front door like usual. He climbs in without explanation when Tweek opens it for him, licking the questions off Tweek's tongue and swallowing them unanswered, letting himself be kissed the way only Tweek kisses, on the verge of out of control; this time Craig doesn't try to control him, and he gives up his own control too, and they tip past the verge, tumbling in wild freefall over the edge. And when Tweek finally lets Craig fuck him for the first time, and then for the second time—which feels like the first all over again because Tweek is so gloriously tight, shaking so hard and needful—Craig wonders why he ever thought control was a good thing.

 

Naturally, Token sits with his new girlfriend at lunch the next day. If Craig thought that meant Clyde would come back to their table, he is disabused of that notion when Clyde goes over to Cartman's table. Of all the fucking people he could sit with: Cartman. Craig would like to believe Clyde is doing it to get to him, but that's probably not possible, since Craig has never told Clyde how crazy it makes him that Cartman marked Clyde first and more permanently than any hickey Craig ever gave him.

He's half-way through lunch before it occurs to him that he's eating alone. He looks around and sees Jason sitting with Jimmy, Timmy, and Scott Malkinson. Craig doesn't really blame him; he's only sitting with himself because he has to.

 

Craig eats lunch on the bleachers the next day, but the day after that it's sleeting. He tries going outside anyhow, but doesn't even make it to the bleachers before he gives up and turns around. As he enters the cafeteria, there's the loud, unmistakable clatter of a tray meeting the floor. Craig thinks of himself as being above car crash rubbernecking, but nonetheless he finds his gaze drawn to the source of the sound.

Which turns out to be Clyde, getting to his hands and knees on the floor next to Cartman, who is laughing as Clyde leaves the tray where it is and eats a tater tot off it. Then Cartman leans over and says something to Clyde, and Clyde ducks his head and stays on his hands and knees, and Craig doesn't apologize to whoever he just knocked into as he gets himself to Cartman's table.

"Don't," he says, standing in front of Clyde. When Clyde looks up, Craig says, "Don't sit with these guys anymore. You don't have to do this. You're not Cartman's—you're not his dog."

Clyde's mouth comes open but he doesn't say anything, and neither does Craig.

An outburst of laughter from Cartman breaks their locked gaze. "Jesus Christ, that's hilarious! I mean, that's not what's going on here—but isn't it interesting your mind went right there without passing go or collecting two hundred?" He leers up at Craig, eyeballing him, mouth curled up on one side. "I always knew you weren't the plain vanilla asshole you pass yourself off as."

Though he has rarely ever blushed, the heat Craig feels beneath his skin is unmistakable. He turns around and walks out of the cafeteria, as quickly and as slowly as he dares.

 

They've been making out in Tweek's room for hours, half naked, wrapped as much in the haze of arousal as in each other, when Craig props up on his elbow to admire the pretty little bruise he's been working on over Tweek's jugular. He leans in to lick it—and finds himself stopped by Tweek's hand on his chest.

"Did you break up with Clyde?"

Craig leans back. "No."

"So, ah, you're going to see him after you leave here, like always?"

As Craig sits up, he takes a moment to wonder how it is that he has, apparently, fallen for the two slowest kids in South Park. He had no idea Tweek thought this is what's been going on. "I haven't been going over to Clyde's."

"But you said you didn't break up with him..." Tweek sits up now, too.

"I didn't," Craig says. "He's the one who called it quits with me."

"Oh."

They look at each other, Craig steady, Tweek blinking fast and furious.

Lips parted, Craig tilts his head, leaning forward into his own invitation. And falls over backwards as Tweek meets him the rest of the way, and more, in another kiss.

 

Craig is bumming a smoke off Kenny on the basketball court when he feels a tap on his shoulder. He glances back, then turns around, wondering what Butters wants with him.

"Tweek breaks up."

Craig stares at him for a full second, then another. "What?"

"Tweek, uh—well, he breaks up with you." Butters looks away, rubbing his fists together in the nervous habit he hasn't outgrown, then glances back at Craig.

"Say that again." Craig drops his freshly lit but unsmoked cigarette, grinds it under his toe, takes a step forward as Butters takes a step back. "Say it." His hand snakes out on its own, fastening to Butters's collar. "Again."

Butters only gets as far as, "Uhm," before Craig shakes him; and that's as far as Craig gets before Kenny is prying his fingers loose, pushing him away, putting a protective arm around Butters.

Kenny's shove wasn't that hard, but Craig goes down anyhow, landing barehanded on the weather-beaten blacktop. _Fuck_ , he thinks. He's breathing harder than he should be for such a small fall, but he can't seem to catch his breath. In his peripheral vision, he sees Butters start forward, but Kenny stops him and leads him away.

 _Fuck_ , he thinks again.

He tries it aloud: "Fuck." He lies back, looks up, just looks up at God or nothing or whatever is up there. He lifts his hands, balled into fists, and extends the middle finger of each one. "Fuck you," he says to God or nothing or himself, whatever. "Fuck you.

"Fuck you.

"Fuck! Fuck you!

"FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCKING FUCKING FUCK! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!

" _FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!_ "

 

Craig gets suspended for what the school administration terms his "outburst" on the playground. He wonders whether it says more about them or about himself, that he's apparently built up such a reputation over the years that his twelve solid minutes of screaming obscenities and lying rigidly prone, even when the gym teachers tried to get him to his feet, warrants only what is basically a slap on the wrist and a minor notation on his ever-growing permanent record.

The suspension is set to last one week. For the first few days, Craig doesn't see or talk to anyone, although Token texts him at one point to tell him rumors of his nervous breakdown are flying around the student body. Craig can't decide whether that's better or worse than the adults calling it a little outburst. Then he decides not to think about it, which feels like the best decision he's made in months.

Four days into the suspension, Craig goes out his window at nightfall and walks to the high school. He's been suspended from the swim team as well, which Coach dourly said would probably hurt them more than it would hurt Craig. He knows they think he doesn't care about the team because he acts the same whether he wins or loses, and they're right: he doesn't care about winning or losing. He doesn't even know what their record is right now. He just likes the water.

It's not hard to break into the Park High gym if you know how, which Craig—who has been doing it since the summer before middle school—does. He also knows which lights to turn on so you can see enough not to break your neck falling into the pool, without lighting up the windows and attracting unwanted attention.

Slipping into the water is better than a homecoming, or maybe it's like a homecoming for someone who really likes their home. Craig starts counting his strokes automatically, then stops tracking strokes and laps and just swims; swims and swims and swims, breathing and stroking through the water like this is all that matters; yeah, this is it, man.

When he sees a pair of feet at the other end of the pool as he makes his next turn, he doesn't have to look higher to know who it is. There's only one other person in South Park who breaks into the gym as much as Craig does.

Kenny is sitting on the side, legs dangling down into the water, when Craig reaches him. "What are you doing here?"

"Same as you," Kenny says.

Craig is about to make a crack about getting away from yourself, but even though they share some of the most important things in life, like cigarettes and stolen hours in the pool, they aren't close enough for something like that. So instead he says, "Extra practice, huh?"

Kenny just smiles, and Craig thinks maybe Kenny knows what he was going to say, why he's really there. He tries not to think about whether or not that means Kenny is there for that reason, too.

Since Kenny is a serious enough swimmer that his attitude has never been anything but praised, Craig expects to be out-lapped by a wide margin. Kenny seems content to go at an easy pace, though. They're not in sync, not exactly swimming together, but they're sharing the same relative space at the same time, and it's more okay than Craig thought it would be; it's kind of all right.

When he's too tired to go on but not ready to leave the water yet, Craig stops in the shallow end and folds his arms over the top edge of the pool. When Kenny finishes his next lap, he does the same.

"Hey," Craig says after a while, "how do you do it?"

Kenny shifts, resting his cheek on his arms as he looks at Craig. "Do what?"

"Manage things with Kyle and Stan, without everything falling apart."

Kenny looks at him without speaking for long enough that Craig turns away with a muttered, "Forget it."

"I'm not fucking Kyle," Kenny says, having apparently come to a decision. When Craig looks back at him, Kenny adds, "Stan isn't either. Yet." He smiles on the last word.

"I thought you—"

"Yeah," Kenny cuts him off. "But no. I don't fuck anyone in my inner circle, dude."

Craig cocks his head as he studies Kenny. "Most people count Butters as part of your inner circle, you know."

"I count him, too," Kenny says. "And so does Cartman."

He grins like Craig is supposed to take a special meaning from that, and after a moment Craig does. "Cartman and Butters?"

Kenny nods. "I mean, they probably don't know it yet—but yeah, that's gonna happen."

"So..." Craig wishes he weren't so curious now, but he can't stop himself asking: "Who do you fuck, then?"

"Don't worry about it," Kenny says.

Which, of course, makes Craig worry. If Clyde isn't sitting with those guys because of Cartman...

Kenny reads his mind: "I don't fuck anyone in your inner circle either."

Craig kind of hates himself for the weight of his exhale, which he knows Kenny hears. To distract Kenny from it, Craig hazards a guess: "Ike Broflovski?"

"Dude, sick!" Kenny laughs. "I'm not banging any of my friends' fathers, either, before you ask."

Craig's curiosity is starting to burn. "Just tell me. And don't tell me it's someone I don't know, because you would have just said that in the first place."

Kenny makes a non-committal sound, looking straight ahead again. Craig figures the conversation is over, but then Kenny says, "Do you remember Stan's little Mormon friend from 4th grade?"

Craig does, kind of, although he doesn't remember the kid's name. That detail seems unimportant, though, as he realizes what Kenny is telling him. "You're kidding me, man."

The grin on Kenny's face would be enough to tell Craig that Kenny is not kidding even a little bit, even if Kenny didn't shake his head for emphasis. "Fucking him doesn't have the potential to piss off anyone but God, and since I'm kind of chronically pissed off at God myself, I figure this makes us even. Don't get me wrong—it's not a revenge fuck. I like being around Gary. He's a seriously nice guy. Crazy nice. And he's, like." This time the shake of Kenny's head is more awe than anything else. "That dude is completely comfortable with himself, and up for anything and everything. _Everything_ , man; I shit you not. Like, he just wants to _experience_ life, in all its flavors and kinks."

"Is that a Mormon thing?" Craig asks doubtfully.

Kenny flashes another grin. "I'm pretty sure it's just a Gary thing."

"Oh." The flames of Craig's curiosity flicker and die, leaving not even an ember to smolder. "Well, that's awesome for you." He meant it to sound genuine, but hears the unfortunate bitterness and knows Kenny hasn't missed it, even though Kenny doesn't say anything right away; he knows because Kenny doesn't say anything.

Then Kenny says, "You'll figure it out, man." He pats Craig on the shoulder as he climbs out.

Craig inhales deep and goes under the water until his breath runs out.

 

It's Sunday before Craig goes to the pool again, the night before he has to go back to school. He's not surprised when, after he's been there maybe half an hour, he sees a pair of bare feet at the opposite end of the pool.

He is surprised, though, when the feet turn out not to belong to Kenny. Craig swallows hard as he pulls up at the end of the lane. "What are you doing here?"

Clyde shrugs and kind of smiles as he sits down. Craig hoists himself out of the pool to sit next to him. Their hands rest close to each other on the edge but don't touch.

"I did everything wrong," Craig says, watching the water ripple. "I'm stupid. I thought—I thought you were telling me to ask Tweek out."

"I was," Clyde says.

Their eyes meet when Craig looks over. "Then you're stupid," he says.

"Yeah." Clyde tries smiling again. "I know I am."

Craig wants to tell Clyde he didn't mean it. Clyde isn't stupid. Or he's the kind of stupid that good people are, not stupid the way Craig is. He wants to tell Clyde that he loves him, which he's never said with words and always assumed Clyde knew, but everything is messed up and maybe Clyde didn't know, doesn't know now...

"I lo—"

"Don't say it," Clyde says. He looks away. "But I do too, you know."

Clyde's words get inside Craig, curling up at the base of his throat. He does know. His fingers inch toward Clyde's but still don't quite touch. "I won't try to get him back. I never should have started with him."

"Yeah, you should have," Clyde says. Craig looks up from their hands and finds Clyde looking at him again. "You guys are, like, meant to be."

Craig shakes his head, but he feels his bones embracing Clyde's words.

Fuck his bones. "It's not worth losing you."

"You haven't lost me." Clyde looks away as he slides over so their shoulders bump, though their hands are still apart. "You'll never lose me, man. I'm just sometimes going to be stupid, but you should know that by now." He doesn't look but he does smile as he says, "And, dude, I hope you know you'd have to do something way worse than falling in love for me not to be your friend on a permanent basis."

Falling in love—is he in love with Tweek? Fuck, when did that happen? Was he in love with Tweek even before they kissed for the first time? How is that even possible? Craig doesn't know...but it must be possible, because it kind of is true. At least his bones think so.

"Hey." He waits for Clyde to look at him. "I really want to kiss you right now, man."

"Goodbye pity kiss?" Clyde half-grins.

Craig shakes his head and puts his mouth on Clyde's before either of them can say anything else, licking at Clyde's tongue the way Clyde taught him all those years ago, letting Clyde lick at him.

Their foreheads rest together when the kiss breaks. "Do you think," Clyde starts. He stops to draw an audible breath. "Do you think I could have that goodbye fuck now?"

As if Craig could deny Clyde anything at this moment. "Not goodbye," he says. "But yeah."

He slips into the water, drawing Clyde down with him. He holds onto the edge as Clyde enters him, and he doesn't have to look to know that Clyde's eyes are closed when he comes inside Craig this time.

Craig supports both of them as Clyde rests, draped against his back. When Clyde slips, softening, out of him and reaches for the wall, Craig turns him around so they're facing each other, and takes him that way. They fuck until Clyde is hard again, so quiet like always, except for the intensity of his breathing. Craig lets go of his hip and reaches for his throat, to feel that breath like he's always wanted to. He presses his thumb into the hollow of Clyde's throat, then folds it and brings it up under Clyde's chin. He presses again, lightly, just hard enough for Clyde's pupils to dilate with understanding.

"Please," Clyde says softly.

So Craig does it, presses harder, hard enough to take Clyde's breath away, literally and just for a second or two, just long enough for Craig to own Clyde's breath the way he's always, always wanted to.

Clyde's lashes flutter as his eyes open when he comes to, flutter shut again as he comes. Those lashes are damp by the time Craig comes, and he wants to cry, too, but he only kisses the tears on Clyde's lashes, licks them from his skin.

They don't talk as they climb out of the water, back into the world. They don't talk as they leave the school, as they walk through the streets of South Park until they get to the intersection where Craig's house is one way and Clyde's is the other.

"See you tomorrow," Clyde says.

"Yeah," Craig says. "I'll save your seat at lunch."

Clyde smiles, his biggest one of the evening, before he heads off.

Craig watches him go, knowing Clyde won't look back, knowing he'll see Clyde tomorrow and everything will be the same as it ever was between them, and completely and irrevocably different at the same time. But he will see Clyde tomorrow, and the day after that, and the one after that, too, which is as far into the future as Craig cares to think. And he smiles, too.


End file.
